If you don't trust their salespeople, why on earth would you trust them claiming that they aren't sales people? Judge based on the available facts, not superficial prejudices.
It screams "we'll charge you as much as we think you can afford", kinda like those domain squatters. Oh you're a big company and want this random domain name? $40,000 please.
But in the case of Sandstorm devs, it's just that those features/that product is still in development.
When Walmart calls your sales department, they aren't going to be suckered into a high price. On the contrary, they have a procurement department whose job is to negotiate the price down. They also probably have custom requirements that they want met, so a self-service option wouldn't even work for them.
Typically -- especially among "scalable" startups -- the "contact sales" option is meant specifically for these big fish to utilize, while the smaller fish get a self-service option with standardized pricing. This is what Sandstorm will have in the future.
And I just wanna know if it's a four, five, or six digit figure for God's sakes.
Also I think Sandstorm is really cool. Feel like I should mention that.